The present invention relates generally to integrated circuit packaging and more specifically, to semiconductor packaging methods and assemblies for packaging integrated circuit dies along with passive elements.
Semiconductor packages are fabricated in various structures, but all of the structures generally include an encapsulation around a semiconductor die that includes integrated electronic circuits. The encapsulation provides protection from external environments. A substrate, such as a lead frame, a printed circuit board (PCB), a circuit film, a circuit tape, or a similar structure is included for interconnecting various input/output signals to and from the semiconductor die.
Among the differing types of semiconductor packages, there are semiconductor packages including passive components, such as resistors R, capacitors C, inductors L, and other passive components mounted within the semiconductor package. One such semiconductor package for a self-contained system has the passive components mounted on a surface of a substrate described above, such as the resistors, the capacitors, and the inductors. Another semiconductor package includes passive components and semiconductor dies mounted to one face of a substrate, and solder balls fused to the other face of the substrate. This second type of semiconductor package is used to reduce the size of the semiconductor package where otherwise a large area would be required if the semiconductor dies and the passive components were mounted on the same face of the substrate.
As the semiconductor packages are included within mobile modules and radio frequency (RF) devices such as cellular phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), the semiconductor packages are required to have excellent thermal properties to provide product reliability. However, since the above-described prior art semiconductor packages have passive components encapsulated along with the semiconductor dies, they have poor heat dissipation characteristics.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a semiconductor package including passive components that has improved heat dissipation characteristics.
The above stated objectives are achieved in a shield cap and semiconductor package including a shield cap whereby a semiconductor die is packaged in conjunction with passive elements. The semiconductor package assemblies include at least one passive component, a substrate with a central cavity for mounting a semiconductor die and a shield cap attached to the bottom surface of the substrate for covering and protecting the passive components. The substrate includes multiple electrically conductive patterns formed on the top surface and bottom surface and the electrically conductive patterns on the bottom surface include mounting pads for mounting the passive components.